Thursday, 8/10/06 at 2:24 PM
by Diane Shindler
by Diane Shindler
Empowering Women
For the past two years I have ridden the Giant Sedona I won through the “Biketown” giveaway with my “Biker Babe” girlfriends. Over the years we’ve increased the number of miles we ride each week and also added more and more hills to our route, so I knew it was getting near the time I would need to take the plunge and upgrade to a road bike.
In late June I brought home a brand new baby blue Giant OCRc road bike complete with drop handlebars and clipless pedals. I was so impressed with it because it is so light I can pick it up with one hand, but I have to admit I was scared to ride it at first. I not only had to get used to riding in a more forward position, but I also had to learn to use those clipless pedals!
At first I went riding with the Biker Babes on my trusty Sedona, then I’d return home and ride my new road bike around the block a few times trying to get used to it without the distraction of other people. I didn’t clip in the first few times I rode because I wanted to get used to the bike and the new gears first, although at stops I would practice the motion of clipping out with my foot. My biggest problem with the clipless pedals was learning not to rest my foot on the pedal when I was nearing a stop after clipping out and several times as I was taking my foot off the pedal when stopped I accidentally clipped back in and fell. I’m happy to report that after two skinned knees I finally learned to take my foot completely off the pedal when I unclip and I haven’t fallen since. Like a kid I guess I need to learn some things the hard way!!!!
Shortly after I got my new bike, Kristen from Two Wheels One Planet in Lake Forest, Ca. announced on my blog she was starting her “Woman’s Program”, which could not have started at a better time for me! I had ridden for two years, but I had so much to learn about my new bike and also about cycling in general.
Kristen’s first class was “Hands on Maintenance” and we learned to fix flats, do bike safety checks and the general care and feeding of our bicycles. Kristen’s second class was a beginner road ride that was designed to teach the rules of the road and give us the confidence to navigate traffic. This was a great class for me because most of my rides have been on bike trails.
For the third class, Kristen put us all on trainers and taught us the proper technique of shifting for hill climbing. It really helped being on the trainers so we could look down and actually see the gears shifting. I left that class with a much better understanding of my bike and how and when to shift. At our fourth class we learned all about miscellaneous things like nutrition, the difference in cycling clothing, helmets, etc.
Not long after those classes I was out riding my new bike solo and had a flat tire. I had my cell phone and could have called someone, but I put it down and pulled out the notes I took from class and I CHANGED IT ALL BY MYSELF! I had been riding for two years and I finally have the knowledge to take care of my bike myself. A BIG thank you to Kristen and everyone who takes the time to empower us women with the knowledge we need to take care of ourselves.
Happy cycling!
Diane
In late June I brought home a brand new baby blue Giant OCRc road bike complete with drop handlebars and clipless pedals. I was so impressed with it because it is so light I can pick it up with one hand, but I have to admit I was scared to ride it at first. I not only had to get used to riding in a more forward position, but I also had to learn to use those clipless pedals!
At first I went riding with the Biker Babes on my trusty Sedona, then I’d return home and ride my new road bike around the block a few times trying to get used to it without the distraction of other people. I didn’t clip in the first few times I rode because I wanted to get used to the bike and the new gears first, although at stops I would practice the motion of clipping out with my foot. My biggest problem with the clipless pedals was learning not to rest my foot on the pedal when I was nearing a stop after clipping out and several times as I was taking my foot off the pedal when stopped I accidentally clipped back in and fell. I’m happy to report that after two skinned knees I finally learned to take my foot completely off the pedal when I unclip and I haven’t fallen since. Like a kid I guess I need to learn some things the hard way!!!!
Shortly after I got my new bike, Kristen from Two Wheels One Planet in Lake Forest, Ca. announced on my blog she was starting her “Woman’s Program”, which could not have started at a better time for me! I had ridden for two years, but I had so much to learn about my new bike and also about cycling in general.
Kristen’s first class was “Hands on Maintenance” and we learned to fix flats, do bike safety checks and the general care and feeding of our bicycles. Kristen’s second class was a beginner road ride that was designed to teach the rules of the road and give us the confidence to navigate traffic. This was a great class for me because most of my rides have been on bike trails.
For the third class, Kristen put us all on trainers and taught us the proper technique of shifting for hill climbing. It really helped being on the trainers so we could look down and actually see the gears shifting. I left that class with a much better understanding of my bike and how and when to shift. At our fourth class we learned all about miscellaneous things like nutrition, the difference in cycling clothing, helmets, etc.
Not long after those classes I was out riding my new bike solo and had a flat tire. I had my cell phone and could have called someone, but I put it down and pulled out the notes I took from class and I CHANGED IT ALL BY MYSELF! I had been riding for two years and I finally have the knowledge to take care of my bike myself. A BIG thank you to Kristen and everyone who takes the time to empower us women with the knowledge we need to take care of ourselves.
Happy cycling!
Diane
Comments
I got such a kick out of reading your message because I was just about to post a very similar one. I purchased an OCRc last week and I'm completely blown away by how incredibly nice it rides. Prior to the OCRc I was riding an FCR4 and although I really like that bike and will continue to ride it I'm truly in love with my OCRc. My husband (who rides an OCR1) calls it a wolf in sheeps clothing because it's a nice looking sky blue "girly" bike but of course you and I both know what it's capable of doing
Like you, I was aprehensive about going clipless. I had planned to ride my bike for a few weeks with regular shoes because when I test rode it at the bike shop it had the two sided pedals with one side being the traditional pedals and the other side was clipless. Well my husband picked the bike up from the shop for me and when he unloaded it at home I saw the shop had taken off the traditional pedals. I hadn't even bought the special shoes yet so I wasn't too happy at that moment. I called the bike shop and of course they were more than willing to put the regular pedals back on but I decided to take the plung and go straight to clipless. I'm soooooo glad I decided to do that. I've only ridden it a few times but I'm already a huge fan of clipless. Like you said, there is a bit of a learning curve with them but it really doesn't take long at all to get the hang of them.
Take care and I hope you enjoy your new bike as much as I'm enjoying mine!!!
Lisa Thompson
I LOVE MY NEW BIKE!!! You should see the hills I'm doing on that bike now, it's just incredible to me how easy it makes a long ride as well. I'm still dealing with the saddle issue though. I tried a woman specific seat and after the ride I was sore for several days, so I went back to the saddle that came with the bike.
I also love the clipless pedals too, but after almost 2 months riding the bike I still have those pedals from the bike shop on. Not that I use them at all, I just haven't bothered to try to take them off. I must look pretty silly!
Keep in touch and let me know how you are. I'm going to attempt to ride a century next month, but we'll see if my old body can hold up!!!
Take care, Diane
This is great. I ride in my community and have been on some trails in Wisconsin and would like to extend my riding experience to include others.
Well, now I know where to go for more information and to share.
It's great to hear from you! I think it's great that we can share our experiences and accomplishments. My longest ride has been 46 miles and I'm hoping to do a 50 mile ride this week. I'm trying to train for a century next month, but so far my body starts to get pretty sore and stiff at around 30 miles, so we'll see. I've only had my new bike since late June so I figure if I can at least complete part of this century there is always next time!!!
Take care and keep in touch.
Diane
Just wanted to let you know I'll be participating in my first charity bike ride this weekend. Of course I'll be riding my new OCRc
How is the training coming for your century ride? Did you do a 50 mile ride last week?
Take care,
Lisa
After the 50 miles I felt I could have gone one, so that's a good sign. My husband and I are going to try to ride about 70 miles tomorrow, then start to taper off as we get closer. Wish me luck, I figure if I can do this at my age anyone can!!!
I know what you mean about riding in traffic. I'm much more confident then I was, but except when I'm riding with a group I pretty much will stay on the bike paths.
Take care and let me know how the charity ride goes. I'm sure it will be easy on that great bike of your!!!
Diane
anyone taken the League of American Bicyclists series?
Comfort mountain
Miriam has a jones to just chill on her favorite flat, paved bike trail. True, she’s packing a few extra pounds but she’s very fit and also happy with her body shape. Who says big isn’t beautiful? Not her man, he loves her and in fact, is afraid that if she rides too much she’ll lose that gorgeous goddess look that he so craves. So Miriam’s all set, she just likes to ride her bike on the paved bike path with her friends. They do occasionally have the urge to go fast over the speed bumps. Mary and her friends mainly like to ride a few miles, stop and smell the flowers, sit on the bench, talk about life, ride a few miles more, stop and have something to eat. Miriam packs a mean lunch of dried tomatoes in olive oil, fresh mozzarella cheese, fresh Italian bread from the local bakery and yes, a half liter sized bottle of good red wine that she picks up at her favorite store in town. It’s a fairly rare local wine, and absolutely wonderful. She has special plastic wine glasses.
Miriam’s girlfriends usually accompany her. They all have the same bike, a Specialized woman’s model that cost between $300 and $500, depending on which model each woman chose as her favorite. The bikes have fat bald tires, a woman’s frame with a sloping down tube, a big woman’s saddle for their wonderfully large derrieres, and upright handlebars with cushy grips that also have a shifter attached. The bikes are purple, green and yellow, and the girls are Miriam, Pam and Sharon. All good friends, all happy cyclists, all women of size who are proud of it and love to have their weekly ride with a tasty lunch in the middle of it. Doesn’t that sound like fun? Hope they invite me someday. We’ll call their bikes women’s comfort mountain bikes.
Aggressive road with flat handlebars
Betty likes to ride her bike to work. She’s got a lot of stress because she’s a corporate attorney in a big firm and works downtown. Traffic is horrendous and there’s no parking at all. Sometimes she has to work late at night on briefs and then she’s dealing with the danger of street life in parking garages after dark. She’s already been stalked a few times, called the police yada yada and pretty much had enough of dealing with walking to her car after dark. Betty’s a single thirty something woman living in a big city with a high paced corporate job, no real life to speak of other than her career (she may make partner in her firm if she can work long enough hours) and she really needs to have something in her life other than work.
One day, after yet another close parking garage incident, Betty decided to take matters into her own hands and bike to work. There’s an advantages of biking to work. Her company has showers and she’s got her own office where she parks her bike, so she can hammer to work and still arrive freshly showered for her multiple morning meetings that stress her out to no end but at least she got some exercise. On that fateful day during the hour long lunch she allows herself, Betty strolled into her local downtown totally boutique bike shop and picked out the perfect $1k bike for her very fast ride to work and home. Betty needed something lean and mean that would go very fast and take some abuse.
She’s now stylin big time on a Specialized road bike with flat handlebars and a body fat index of under 10%. This bad girl bike is solid black, with nothing extra on it but a couple of bar ends for climbing hills. It has skinny 700x 23cc tires, weighs in at under 22 pounds and goes very very fast. The flat handlebars allow Betty to see what’s in front of her and handle the bumps that only a big city can dish out. Betty is in an aggressive forward lean position that puts her in control and leaves little to the imagination. She’s riding clipless pedals with a small Camelbak pack, an Co2 inflator in case of a flat, a tight jersey, shorts, tights, shoes and nothing else.
Betty prefers to travel light and have her bike serviced at the shop where she bought it rather than worry about maintenance. She takes her little machine in once a month for a tune up because she abuses it so badly on the city streets. She’s got special liners in the tires to ensure that she doesn’t’ have to deal with a flat late at night after delivering yet another brief to another high profile client. Betty can ride her bike through town faster than she could ever drive, so her car remains parked in the garage while she gets fitter and fitter riding fast in and fast out. Oh, and by the way, she saw her harasser walking down the street one day, same guy who stalked her in the parking lot at night. She rode up to him feeling pretty mad, and she was looking tight with all black with a black helmet, gloves and shoes. She got right up next to him silently, before he even realized who she was. Betty said, “You ever even so much as look at me again and you are going to eat my bike pump.” He literally ran down the street to get away from her. Funny how city life can be sometimes. One minute you are getting stalked, the next minute you are confronting your stalker. Betty now has much less stress in her life and by the way, she just made partner in her firm. She rides an aggressive road bike with flat handlebars.
Touring
Diana always dreamed of graduating from college then riding across the country before settling down into a “real” job. People kind of thought she was crazy to do this on her own, but Diana believed that seeing the world from the vantage point of a bike saddle would allow her to experience the beauty of the United States in a personal way. Besides, riding a bike was better than spending ridiculous money on gas and gaining a bunch of weight from eating car food. While finishing her degree, she typed up reports for fellow students and saved her quarters in a big gallon pickle jar. Each quarter was one step closer to fulfilling her dream of riding across the United States, from the East Coast where she was at school, to the West Coast, where she intended to live. When the jar was full, she was ready to buy her bike at the local bike shop.
Diana had been staring at that bike for a long time, because it just sat there gathering dust. No one wanted a touring bike these days, she thought to herself, but look how beautiful it is. The bike was long and sleek and wide and stable. It was forest green with fat 700c wheels, broad dropped handlebars, an upright stem, brazons for panniers, a triple crank with a low low granny gear. This sturdy bike would handle mountains with steep uphills and downhills, and carry her and her gear for thousands of miles.
The guys at the shop knew how much Diana wanted the touring bike so they sort of saved it for her, not encouraging customers to look at it, letting it gather dust in the hidden corner in the back of the shop. This bike was for Diana, and she finally came in one day and bought it. She bought a Bob one-wheeled trailer to haul her stuff, along with a set of panniers for the back of her bike. She also bought a case of peanut butter Cliff bars, extra tubes, tires, an Alien tool and a black spoke wrench just in case she popped a spoke. The guys at the shop gave Diana a sweet deal on all her gear as she was a poor college student and a loyal fan of their shop. They wished her bon voyage and took photos of her before she left.
Diana sold most of her possessions and books, packed up her gear, got on her bike and set out for her dream ride across the country. It’s been a long summer, but last I heard, she was wrenching at a bike shop in California, writing a book about her trip and surfing during the week. Diana rode all the way from Amherst, Massachusetts to San Diego, California on a touring bike.
Bonking and puking
As a cyclist, I have bonked on many occasions and learned to always carry food of some type, even if it’s only in the form of a few old raisons stuck in the seat bag of my bike. Never, ever go without food on a ride. Once you have bonked, you’ll find it incredibly difficult to finish your ride. I have bonked on several memorable occasions during long rides back in Oklahoma. On one ride in particular, my girlfriend and I had plotted out a 95 mile ride, not taking any food, and skipping our first 10 mile pancake stop. We instead planned to visit a store in an unknown small prairie town 30 miles distant. Guess we were trying to lose weight or something. Well, there was no store in the town we plotted to ride through, so instead we luckily bummed some soft drinks from the people who used to run the store. Oklahoman’s are a friendly bunch of people, especially out in the boonies. Anyway, it was at the 75 mile mark that we finally found food that day. There’s a famous little restaurant in Meers, Oklahoma that serves the best pecan pie in the world, along with huge quart sized drinks. We careened into the store, ordered two pieces of pecan pie apiece and proceeded to sugar up on pie and soft drinks. Then we had to climb the hill out of there and pedal another 25 miles home. To say we felt poorly is an understatement. My stomach still cringes at the thought of that entire day, fueled only by sugar, cramped and pained at every pedal stroke.
Another time I set out with the Big Boys on a hard road ride through the Wichita Wildlife Refuge. None of my best friends were in attendance so I was at their mercy and they could care less whether I stayed with them or not. I stupidly forgot to bring a snack of any kind and was totally I mean totally bonked about 30 miles into our ride. I reached a point where I couldn’t pedal anymore at all. The guys took one look at me and just left, never to be seen again that day. I was alone, walking along a country road when I happened to see a house. In that part of Oklahoma the houses, especially inhabited ones, can be far apart. What to do? Well, after hitchhiking around the United States as a young woman, I was unafraid of approaching strangers for a snack, especially since I was completely unable to pedal my bike and knew I didn’t have the energy to walk all the way back to Lawton, where I lived at the time. So I crept up to the door and softly knocked. A friendly farmer face answered, looking at me quizically. I said, “Sorry to bother you sir, I’ve ridden my bike this far, and I ran out of food. Now I can’t ride home!” Guess I looked pretty pitiful to him but he didn’t really know what to make of me so he just looked at me. “Can I please have a few slices of bread?” I asked. Now I’m sure you think I’m a real loser but the fact is, bonking is bonking and sometimes you have to beg for food! He went inside and brought me two slices of bread and if memory serves, a banana. I gratefully thanked him, scarfed the food and rode my bike home, newfound muscles in my legs and arms. The moral of these stories? Never go without food and never ever ride with people who won’t offer you a Power Bar if you bonk.
Thanks for sharing diane!
Sue
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